Blog of the Green Mage

     So quick back-story: I live in an apartment in the city so I can attend the college up here, but my job of working at a movie theater is in a town about an hour's drive away, where my immediate family also lives.  Due to my often weird college class schedule and the fact past attempts of trying to get a decent job in the city have produced no results, I can only work at my theater job every other weekend, which is currently fine by me because that gives me every other weekend off, and I also get to see my family once every two weeks.

     So with that little info out of the way, I mentioned in my last post that it was shortly after I picked up my new glasses frames that I ran by the theater to check on my work schedule for this weekend,  in which I was expecting to find exactly what shifts I would be working.  Turns out they didn't schedule me to work this weekend... at all... whatsoever... not a minute...

...What?

     This bothered me slightly at first, as this was one of the weekends I was supposed to work, and  now that it has been nearly over two weeks since I last worked a shift, my little cache of extra money I throw around on buying games is beginning to slowly hit that point where it is drying up (I just can't seem to stop hunting down and buying older games).  However, I sort of shrugged it off since I had to drive all the way down here for two appointments, a renaissance festival, and a movie, anyway.  It did, however, seem extremely odd that they would botch up my schedule like that when it's been like this for nearly a year now.  But then my brother mentioned something, and now it is as clear as day to me as to exactly why they did not schedule me to work this weekend, and it can be summed up in one, single, demonic little word.

     Twilight.

     D@mn it, you insufferable, annoying, ill-conceived, embarrassing by-product of sudden mass popularity.

     The next movie in the Twilight saga, Eclipse, is set to come out this week (tomorrow, actually), and my work decided to slyly not schedule me this weekend so that I am forced to work Twilight's weekend release. You sneaky, sneaky little b@st@rds, signing me to my death like that.  So what's the big deal about this?  Well, if you didn't work at a popular movie theater in town when the last two movies hit, you probably wouldn't exactly know, although you could probably make a good guess how hectic it was.  But it's not exactly the movie itself that has me worried (although yeah, I do hold gripes against Twilight in general).  It's the fans.  All of the rabid fans who come to watch Twilight on opening weekend are what kill me.  A nonstop flow of  goths, wanna-be vampires, Team Edward vs. Team Jacob fans, etc. for the entire effin' shift will break you down faster than a sledgehammer to an egg (not actually tested).  Not that I have anything directly against goth-like people, but when every single customer you serve is wearing a black shirt/purse/backpack/ripped-pants/sign (it has happened) bearing the Twilight logo and usually the faces of Edward and Bella staring directly into your soul, for 8 hours straight per shift (14-15 hours if I'm stupid enough to take on a double-shift, but that will be my own d@mn fault), hopefully you can see where I'm coming at for this.  And they usually come in groups; loud, obnoxious groups of 4+ people.  Probably also doesn't help that I share a name with a character in the Twilight series, which each and every customer seems to love pointing out.  Another little "minor" nitpick that bugs the heck out of me is when the fans bring the book of Eclipse along with them when they're waiting in line to watch the movie (actually can be said with nearly any movie based on a popular novel, but a majority of the Twilight fans are sure to bring the book along with them).  Some of them actually read the book while waiting to be let into the theater, which still is somewhat nagging as I'm pretty sure they've already read the book about 50 times.  The vast majority, however, simply bring the book along as a way of saying, "Hey, look!  I have the book with me!  Imma bigger fan than you are!"

     I also just found out last night that I've been scheduled to work Friday through Monday this coming weekend.  All.  Four.  Days.  And to make matters worse, it's effin' Fourth of July weekend, meaning we're going to be vastly busier than usual.  The new Twilight movie's weekend release... on Fourth of July weekend... SOMEONE, SAVE ME!!1!  All on a weekend I wasn't even supposed to work (although in hindsight, I probably should have expected this).  And not that I don't have enough hatred going against Twilight as it is, but Twilight is also knocking out Toy Story 3 from our IMAX after today.  I was planning on heading back up to my apartment this morning to finish up homework and make time for a full-on MH3 editing session all-day tomorrow, but now I'm forced to stay down here until later today or even possibly tomorrow if I wish to see Toy Story 3 in IMAX 3D (for free, of course) before its dismissal.  Heck, Toy Story wasn't even in IMAX for the customary two weeks before getting kicked out the door.  Despite my hatred for Twilight from a movie-worker's perspective, at least its crowd is not nearly as morale-destroying as the Hanna Montana crowd (the horror stories I could tell you...).  It is, however, still significantly worse than even the Sex in the City scene (even more horror stories...).  Those are probably the three worst kinds of crowds we've received at the theater in recent memory (been working there for three years now), but those other two will be stories for another time.

     So assuming I get back up to the city later tonight or early tomorrow, I'm just going to have to drive back down here Thursday evening to prepare for the onslaught of Twilighters I'm going to be facing off against with my fellow concessionists this coming weekend.  While I could bring the MH3 video files with me on my external HD to work on with my laptop, I'd probably be too tired after the shifts anyway to work all that mumbo-jumbo effectively, plus knowing me, I'll probably be fishing for double-shifts despite my better judgment, since this weekend could possibly bring in a lot of dough for those who are looking for a lot of time and shifts (E3 presents a lot of good reasons to own more money later this year...).  With this in mind, it is quite possible the next set of Monster Hunter videos will be delayed until sometime next week, but this all depends how the next few days end up going.  Don't get your hopes up, because I sure as heck aren't getting mine.  =(

UPDATE:  Got back from seeing Toy Story 3 in IMAX 3D.  Awesome movie.  I would highly suggest it to everyone.  Definitely a great sequel to a great sequel to a great movie.  Also, the line for the midnight showing of Twilight wrapped around the side of the building.  Of the 17 screens our theater has, 8 of them are going to be dedicated to showing Twilight, and I have no doubt that most, if not all of them, will be sold out later tonight.  =P

     Okay, pretty much just making this post because I did a ton of things this weekend I feel like blogging about, and besides the atrociously long rant I'm about to post here soon, were probably the highlights of my weekend.

     So my "weekend" started early when I left my apartment Thursday evening for the hour-long drive to a neighboring city where I work and where my immediate family lives.  I had an eye appointment Friday afternoon, so I thought it best to get down there the day before to make sure I didn't miss it; plus, it was a weekend I was supposed to work anyway.  So I went to my eye appointment, got that done and over with, and then took my new prescription to another Eye Glass store to buy some new frames, since they had a sale going on for buy one, get one free on frames for $80-$100, a good deal in my book.  So now I have two new pairs of glasses to wear (thank goodness, too, since my last pair were bent and in terrible condition).  While one looks like a slightly better model than my original, the other pair has blue frames on it.  D@mn, I look good in blue!  =D  Anyway, it was shortly after that I found out I wasn't working at all for the weekend, for reasons which will be explicitly explained in my next blog post.  -.-;  After getting my new glasses, I went to BestBuy and finally got myself a new phone set for my apartment, which I probably should have done sooner rather than later because the ancient piece-of-crud phone currently in my apartment has been slowly dying out over the past few months (note to readers: loud, constant random static will hurt your ears).  I'm curious about setting it up and trying it out to see how it works, and am happy of the idea that I will no longer be tethered down to the receiver any more (stupid wired phones...).

     Don't remember anything else I did Friday, but Saturday was definitely a busy day.  My family and I went to the annual Colorado Renaissance Festival that is held each Summer.  This was about our sixth or seventh year going, I believe, and it was still a blast.  As the Festival is quite... eh, festive... I do dress up each time we go (only one in my family, too, I'll note... party poopers... <.<) as a wizard (go figure) in blue (go figure?), and each year, I have been slowly adding on to and improving my outfit.  After this year, I think I pretty much have gotten everything I need for my wizard's outfit to look the way I had originally intended it to when I had thought it up those years ago, so I consider it pretty much complete now, which means I don't have to spend so much money next year we go to the festival.  Things I bought this year included a blue flask, blue gloves, and a blue medieval-esque shirt for me to wear beneath my blue wizard's cloak.  Yeah, did I mention "blue"?  Anyway, the day was pretty fun, except for about midday when a storm kinda swept in and began to rain on us.  I wasn't sure if rain would ruin my wizard's cloak or not (forgot what material we made it out of), but I wasn't about to risk it, so I had to hoof it back out of the festival and to our car to prevent the cloak from getting wet.  Holy heck, that parking lot was larger than I remember!  Note to self for future reference: do not try and run a mile mostly uphill with a 7 to 10 pound sword clinging to your hip.  That little run from across half of the festival grounds and then through the dirt-winding path to the area of the parking lot where we parked not only took the breath out of me, but also ended up killing my left leg where my sword was attached to my belt (did I mention the sword's hilt and sheath are also blue?).  Probably should have taken off that sword when I got back to the car, but I stubbornly decided to keep it on for the rest of the day, a decision that ended up with my leg being incredibly sore for two days after the festival.  I also mighta, kinda, sorta, quite possibly have gotten a tiny, itty-bitty lost in the parking lot trying to find where we parked... for half-an-hour... yeah... *gets death glare from mother*  O_O;  But beyond that, the day went pretty well and was a ton of fun as always.  I was considering recording some of the Festival with my camera so I could upload it to Youtube for people to see how it was, but I decided to hold off and save that for next year.  Guess we'll see... <.<

     Sunday dawned, and the only real notable thing I can remember about it was that my brother and I went to go see Kung Fu Kid.  Not a bad movie, but wasn't quite as good as I thought it would be, either.  I was able to watch the original Karate Kid a couple days before since my brother wanted to see it before viewing the remake, and thus rented it.  Of the two, I would have to say I enjoyed the original a bit more than the remake, although that was kind of a tough call.  I just felt like the original had a bit more impact and was overall better designed than the remake.  It was also a lot more easier to riff on and make fun of, although it wasn't too hard for someone like me to do so on either movie.  >=D  If you're expecting a fast-paced or at least decently paced movie, Kung Fu Kid is probably not what you're looking for; both versions are quite slower-paced compared to other movies now-a-days.  What's that?  It's "Karate" Kid, and not "Kung Fu" Kid?  You wouldn't know that by simply watching the remake.; I think the word "karate" is only mentioned once or twice in the film's entirety.  <.<  Besides the movie, my family went out to dinner later that night to celebrate my brother's birthday early, since chances were likely that I would not be down here to celebrate it on his actual birthday.  Yay, college.

     Had another appointment Monday (yesterday), this time with the dentist. They... didn't say much about my teeth this time, which I guess is an improvement over my last appointment sixth months ago.  o_o;  I had been brushing them much more often this time around, but I'm pretty sure they're still a rotting mess due to the mass amounts of unhealthy food I eat.  Beyond the appointment, though, I think I just spent the rest of the day doing homework, so nothing really interesting.  Overall, I thought it was a pretty nice weekend.  Unfortunately, I highly doubt the coming weekend will go as smoothly... or smoothly at all...  -.-;

So, E3 will be coming to a close pretty soon, yet as always, the news, games, and info released by it will remain around for several weeks and many months to come.  I will, indeed, write up a post about my impressions of things revealed by E3 and my thoughts of what I have seen, read, and heard.  It could be a short post hitting only the main points, or it could be an incredibly lengthy piece a kin to a novel, I don't know.  Just depends on how I feel when writing it and how much time I have to work on it (d@mn, you, college!).  In any case, as I am mostly a WiiPC player (note, not fanboy, noobs), those two platforms will probably be my main focus, although I will also hit up on some things Microsoft, Sony, and Third-Party related if it catches my attention (which I can already tell you, there are some great things of note from them, too).  I don't know when I will put my impressions, as I am still reading up on a lot of things, but by the looks of things, E3 2010 was a pretty nice showing this year.  =D

Also, I doubt anyone will notice, but some minor changes are being made to the blog as I get back into toying around with changes and settings.  Plus, there is a new section added to the side-bar, as well as a mysterious page.  Hmm... I wonder what I'm planning to do with that page...